Beaver Section update (6-8yr olds)
The Beaver Section has been very busy over the past four months. We had a farewell camp for our seven senior Beaver Scouts who were moving on from the Beavers Section to Cubs. This camp was in Mellows in Navan. Twenty One Beaver Scouts and four Leaders arrived at midday and started to work… our Beaver Scouts surprised us with their knowledge and their enthusiasm for setting up camp. We had an abundance of activities to keep the Beavers informed and entertained. The Go-karts and the BouncingCastles were a real hit as were the games room and cinema. We ended our camp with the usual camp-fire and toasted marshmallows. It was great FUN.
We had three Beaver Scouts who excelled over their three years in the Beaver Section. These three Scouts (Safia, Abe and Tiernan) went on to attain the Beaver Section Chief Scout Award. Their final challenge to achieve the award was to complete a 10km hike. They completed this with great excitement and were presented with their prestigious badge by the Cub Section Leaders. Well done .. Well deserved…
On Monday 1st October 2012, Nine new Beavers joined our Section, all very shy!! All nine children set to work learning their basic scout skills for their investiture. They were invested into Scouts on the 19th November. They are a very enthusiastic little group.
Our first big trip out this year was a hill walk on the 25th of November – we left Crone Wood at 1pm and walked around the back of Powerscourt Waterfall. It rained all the time but this did not diminish the achievement of the Hike. We celebrated the Beaver way with hot chocolate and biscuits. Well done to all the parents that came along.
The 41st Beaver Section was very lucky again this year to get to see Santa in Larch Hill. Every Beaver Scout that has ever gone on this trip has said “This is the best Santa ever” and this year was no exception. Full marks to the volunteers who organise this event every year and raise badly needed funds for the Simon Community.
Our Final event for 2012 was our Carol Singing for the residents of the Sue Ryder Foundation. Each year the
Beavers insist on making gifts in the den and delivering them to the residents on the day. This is a fantastic evening out for Beavers, Leaders and the older folk.
A very Merry Christmas from Marie, Mairead, Kelly, Orla, Geraldine, Amanda and Ian
Cub Section update (9-11yr olds)
In the first half of the year we went Yachting, so a big scouting thank you to all of the boat owners, many of them scouting parents, who helped up pull off this extravaganza. Also, thank you to the Royal St. George Yacht Club who facilitated the event and approximately 35 excited cubs.
We then had a great hike at Glendalough to see the Deer Rutting, loads of participants in the 5km Fun Run at KilboggetPark as well as a lovely Beach BBQ early in September. These were all great days out and the weather committee worked very well on all occasions to get the sun to shine, and it did. We also had an amazing visit to the Antarctic with the greatest Irish explorer ever, Shackleton. So, if you have not heard about it and have spare time over Xmas, this exhibit in Dun Laoghaire is truly inspirational and well worth visiting. Great fun was had at many of these events as well as the hall nights when we all have been wrapped up in knots! Check out our website for a video clip of our Yachting day out www.dalkeyseascouts.ie/video-gallery/
HELP FROM PARENTS: We would thank all the parents who have attended events as this is essential so that we can go ahead and function. There is an adult child ratio which we have to maintain at all times and if this system continues working well maybe our leaders may even get an odd Friday night off in the New Year! There will be a new rota in January and please bear with the changes as they happen, the rota sent out is really a guideline and is always subject to change when we get better ideas! If you are unable to attend on a given night, please ensure you get cover yourself i.e. swap with another parent. If you contact the Leaders it really just creates another job for them to do and their job is to look after the cubs.
SCOUTING FOR PARENTS: Parents are always welcome on any of our events, so if you fancy a hike, an adventurous kayak or some summer sailing, just talk to the Leaders. If you are interested in an overnight camping experience, associate membership of Scouting Ireland and Garda Vetting is essential. As rules are changing you will now have to do a one day child protection course in advance of camping, so please do not be put off as it will be well worth it and this can be easily arranged if you express your interest at an early stage to your scout Leader. For details contact secretary@dalkeyseascouts.ie
FEEDBACK & SUGGESTIONS: Any help in the form of ideas, suggestions or feedback is always welcome. If you have a particular skill or can make an appropriate facility available to the troop, we would greatly appreciate your input, every little helps!
EXERCISE FOR EMILY – Our final event this year was a fund raising event. On Saturday Dec 15th the Cubs were carol singing and raising money for Emily Casey a local girl who is in a wheel chair and needs exercise equipment. This is an amazing cause to support, especially close to home. Emily came to the hall a few weeks ago and loved watching the Cubs in action and we all look forward to having her back and presenting a cheque to her in the New Year. Follow ‘Exercise for Emily’ on Facebook.
Thank you to Emily & Stephanie who joined us and to all the parents who sang their hearts out. The event was very well supported by locals who enjoyed the Christmas atmosphere and also by the local businesses Eurospar who sponsored biscuits and Select Stores who provided hot chocolates to stave off the cold. And last but not least, an especially big, thank you to Luke O’Neill & Eddie Loakman for superb backing on their guitars. Definitely two men to have around in a carolling crisis! We all had great fun and are planning next year’s event to be bigger and better, so you better watch out!
Cubs, we hope that over the holidays you will look after yourselves, look out for others and that there is a lovely surprise under the tree for you all! We hope you keep practicing those knots, on the sofa, in the car, behind your back and blindfolded even. The Leaders have are all looking forward to continuing next year and we certainly have many more good ideas up our scouting sleeves.
See you in the Hall Friday January 18th at 6.30pm.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you all
Gavin, John, Dara, Simon, Catriona, Paul & Eoin cubs@dalkeyseascouts.ie
Scout Section update (12-15yr olds)
Scouts went charging straight out of the summer season afloat, straight into the hall! We participated in several of the end of season regattas and events, and well done to the kayaking scouts who brought home some well-deserved medals! The next competitive event is the swimming regatta, 3rd February; mark it in your diaries! Recently we had a very successful hostelling weekend where we successfully topped 4 peaks – Djouce, War Hill, Tonduff South and Maulin covering a total of 18.6km and nearly 900m vertical climb!
Hall News; As usual the Scout section take their well-deserved annual break in January and the first meeting of 2013 will be on the 8th of February. Please note that there will be a zero tolerance policy on uniforms when we meet back, so you have a month to sort this out. Recently the scout themselves decided that they wanted to change to shirts instead of jumpers but don’t worry, if you have a jumper you can still wear it, but if you have neither yet, please buy the shirt. The shirt is also used in ventures and rovers. Full uniform consists of; Dark shoes or dark runners, dark jeans, Scout shirt (sea scout jumper is also acceptable for the moment), scarf, woggle, lanyard and scout belt. Please sew on your badges! There is a page on our website showing Badge placement under the ‘info for scouts’ heading.
Program; Our program will now start to revolve about getting ready for the summer season! So that means
doing bivy trips, backwards cooking, pioneering and the like towards the aim of summer camp, working on the boats prepping them for launching at the end of April and brushing up on both our sailing and land based skills for our usual scout activities. We also hope to team up with Dalkey rowing club for use of their skiff and great experience in spring with the aim to competing in the rowing regattas at the end of the year.
Camps; At this stage we plan to have the dates for our camps and activities ready by our return to the Hall, but camping wise we hope to go to ‘Viking splash’ camp the first weekend of May (sea scouting camp), another weekend camp of our own and our major event of the year; Summer Camp. We have set up an online questionnaire on Summer Camp for parents of Scouts and Ventures – Can you visit http://tiny.cc/fmzgpw and help us make decisions on it? Password is 3rdport and it will take you 1 minute to do it! We will confirm all dates at the end of January.
That’s about it for the moment; we will be in touch before our first meeting back on February the 8th. Otherwise, have a great Christmas from all the scout leaders!
Venture Section update (15-17yr olds)
The newest section of the troop had their first meeting in the relaxed setting of Benitos restaurant, ummm pizza. We now have 12 Ventures registered and hopefully more will join so we can keep expanding! Since then we have had several meetings and outing.
Our first Hall meeting kicked off the section officially at the end of September where we started to make plans for ourselves and since then we kept ourselves busy. In November we had a BBQ on Killiney beach – nothing beats a fire and marshmallows! Camping, rifle range and rafting in the hidden valley centre in Rathdrum near the end of November! Fundraising by recycling old clothes which raised 120 euros for the venture section along with Christmas tin decorations which have being sold for the Simon community mid-December! We have being busy as we’ve also managed to squeeze in the Shackelton Experience in Dun Laoghaire (fingers cross it will come up on the junior cert!) and team up with the scout section for the Knockcree hostelling weekend!
We have plenty of plans coming up, between skiing in Kilternan, pioneering in larch hill on the 28th of December (a very big thank-you to Kilternan ventures!) and a weekend trip to Liverpool by kind invitation of Liverpool Venture section – to be reciprocated by us over the summer. And no doubt lots more!
Remember, the Venture section is always open to new members – age 15 to 17 years. Mobile: 086 4523556. As they say, the more the merrier!
Well done to all Ventures and Scouters – Happy Christmas and a Dib Dib New Year – keep up the Scouting!!
Leaders/Scouters: Sarah McDonagh, Kathleen Macdonald, Darina Porter, Deirdre McDonagh and Luke O’Neill
Rover Section update (18-26yr olds)
Since the mid-summer the Rover section has being away surfing for a weekend in Bundoran, cruise trip on the Shannon and Mountain Biking in Wicklow. We have 11 Rovers registered so we hope to start 2013 with a major drive to try to at least aim for a minimum of one activity a month including getting more involved helping out with other troop sections and sharing activities with other rover groups. Meeting days will be the first Monday of each month (as decided by you!) at 8 in the hall, so if you can’t make it, please let us know and keep up to date with the going ons through facebook! With many of the Rovers off being ‘distracted’ with collage and work among other things, it’s tricky to get everyone on the same page all the time! And while I generally like to stand back and just let things happen (which really is my job description – best section to run ever!) I will make a request to all Rovers, can you make the extra effort to keep up to date on the section news on facebook and response to any activities – a simple yes or no generally suffices and makes like easier for whoever is organising the activity!
We also have a 4 overseas members kept on the register, so that when they are back in the country, they can dip right back in!
We have a few activities on the back burner, such as rock climbing on an inside wall, as well as up the quarry! A bit of paintballing and inviting some other rover groups to join us! Night hike in Wicklow – just once again to show that the night can’t stop a Rover! And various ideas such as island weekend camping, rover swim regatta and helping to run Summer Camp! Oh and if you’re a Scout or Venture Parent reading this, please click on the link in the Scout Section and do the summer camp survey!
Have a great Christmas everyone,
Simon.
Rock-climbing (inside); 9th January
Night hike; 23rd February
3rd Port Kayak Club update (Scouts, Ventures and Rovers)
Winter kayaking is open to any Scout, Venture or Rover who has achieved a minimum standard of level 2 ICU skills. We’ve had a good season so far with a few beginner trips on the Boyne, and have now progressed to white water in Wicklow. A big thanks to Ross Donovan who has fully joined the kayaking team and he’s proving to be a great addition. We now have 3 ICU qualified instructors; Sarah, Ross and Simon. For those who don’t know, we are also a registered Irish Canoe Union (ICU) club and enjoy all the benefits of being members of this association.
We have 3 Scouts training for their level 3 skills, so hopefully they will gain this early in the year and have the option of stepping up to the next level of river grade (grade 3)
Pool kayak rolling sessions will be run again this year in conjunction with 8th Port Dun Laoghaire in Stillorgan swimming pool. When we confirm details, all the information will be posted on the ‘3rd Port Kayak Club’ facebook page, but it usually kicks off in mid February.
As always, there are also some White Water River Races which have specific junior categories, see http://www.irishwildwaterracing.com. Also check out www.canoe.ie if anything sparks an interest, let us know.
| The new dates are as follows;13 January | Sunday | General trip – wicklow |
| 20 January | Sunday | Level 3 Assessment |
| 2 February | Saturday | General trip |
| 9 February | Saturday | Grade 3 Trip (only open to those with Level 3 skills) |
| 3 March | Sunday | General trip |
| 24 March | Sunday | Grade 3 Trip (only open to those with Level 3 skills) |
| 6 April | Saturday | General trip |
| 13 April | Saturday | Grade 3 Trip (only open to those with Level 3 skills) |